Contemporary Art

Live Auction, 16 February 2019

Contemporary Auction
  • Willem Boshoff; Fallen 2-Letter Words


Lot Estimate
ZAR 90 000 - 120 000

About this Item

South African 1951-
Fallen 2-Letter Words
2005
sand, stone and concrete
122 by 144cm excluding frame

Notes

In the two artworks Fallen 2-Letter Words and Fallen 3-Letter Words I bring paradoxical homage to a language that is wrecked. The simplest Afrikaans words, consisting of two and three letters, have had their wings melted and, like Icarus, are plummeting from the sky to become part of the seepage and slippage of the oceans – fallen, broken and washed-up.

I am an artist and I know the value of things discarded, of arte povera and of abject hopelessness. I believe against belief that Afrikaans in its present state as the flotsam and jetsam of a politico-cultural disaster, stands a better chance to be ‘liberated’ as one of the world’s great languages – better than when is was self-assertive and mean.’1

  1. Willem Boshoff. (2005) Fallen 2 & 3 Letter Words, [Online] Available: https://www. willemboshoff.com/product-page/fallen-2-3- letter-words [6 December 2018].

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